Jarrett Jack and his contract have been tossed into the previously reported Dorrell Wright swap (to Philly). Jack is on his way to Golden State. Per CSN Bay Area: “According to a league source, the Wright trade is part of a three-team deal that will land the Warriors a veteran point guard. The source said the deal is not fully completed but it’s close. Jack is expected to back up Steph Curry at point guard. The 6-3, 197-pounder has six NBA seasons under his belt. Last year with New Orleans he averaged 15.6 points and 6.3 assists in 45 games. He has also played for Portland, Indiana and Toronto. It was reported in several outlets on Tuesday that the Warriors had acquired Edin Bavcic from Philadelphia. The Sixers owned Bavcic’s rights from a 2006 trade with the Toronto Raptors.”

What up, people? It’s Friday and things are sloooow here at the SLAM Dome, which is nice because the last week or so was a sprint to finish our next issue, with a 4,000-mile round-trip to Los Angeles over the weekend thrown in for me, so I could report this next issue’s cover story. Our office was closed on Monday for MLK Day, so I took the redeye back to NYC that left Sunday night, worked on the plane the entire time and didn’t sleep, got to NYC on Monday morning and went directly home. I slept three hours, woke up and did a conference call for Tuesday’s episode of “The Beat” on NBA TV, went back to sleep for a few hours, woke up and recorded this week’s episode of The Hangtime Podcast (link below), went back to sleep for a few hours, then woke up and got back to work on the cover story for this issue of SLAM.

Then Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday featured all of us in the Dome running around like chickens with our heads cut off, finishing writing things and editing things. And now we’re done with the issue that will drop right around All-Star Weekend. I get the weekend off, and then I’m leaving town again, to work on a different story, and coming back later next week. It really don’t stop.

On “The Beat” this week, David Aldridge and I did our midseason awards, and it was much tougher than I expected to make my choices. Perhaps that was because of my zombie-like state of unsleep, but I really struggled deciding.

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: This one was so easy that we ended up not even debating it on the show — Blake Griffin, obvs — and instead talked about whether or not Blake will be an All-Star. We both agreed that he will be, because there’s no way Stern would miss this marketing opportunity. I should also mention that I wrote the John Wall cover story a few months ago arguing that he was a legit ROY candidate. And he was. But he’s only played in 28 games because of injuries, and as good as he’s been — he’s 5th in the League in assists — Blake Griffin has been unstoppable.

MOST IMPROVED: DA and I also agreed on this one, as we both went with Kevin Love. I thought about choosing either Wes Matthews or Dorrell Wright, because they’ve both been terrific, but I couldn’t overlook what Love’s doing. You know, he averaged 14 and 11 last season, both perfectly respectable averages, but this season he’s averaging 21.4 and 15.6. So he’s averaging more rebounds per game this season than he did points per game last season. Some of that is an increase in playing time, sure, but he’s only playing about 7 minutes more per game. As DA said, if it was that easy to average 15 rebounds a game, everybody would do it.

COACH OF THE YEAR: I think this is the most wide-open category. DA went with Popovich, which I totally get. I thought about Thibodeau, Doc Rivers, Rick Carlisle, even Jerry Sloan, but eventually went with Erik Spoelstra. It was just a few months ago that there were rumors about whether or not Spoelstra was the right guy for the job. They started 9-8, and since then are 21-5, which includes that 21 of 22 run when everyone was healthy. They’ve lost Haslem and Mike Miller to long injuries, but nore than anything, I went with Spoelstra because he’s had a bigger spotlight on him than any other coach, and he not only didn’t screw it up, but he’s also been very successful.

MVP: I thought hard about Derrick Rose and Amar’e, and DA went with LeBron and made a good case for him. I came really close to going with Rose, but to me, the two best teams for most of the first half were Dallas and San Antonio, and the main reason Dallas was there was because of Dirk Nowitzki. Before Dirk went down with that injury, Dallas was a crazy 24-5. He’s averaging about 24 ppg, right around his career average, but the most impressive thing to me is that he’s the most efficient he’s ever been, shooting a remarkable 54 percent from the floor. As if to prove Dirk’s value, when he went down injured, Dallas went 2-7 without him. Since he came back they’re 1-3, and trying to figure out how to play without Caron Butler. But that 24-5 start suggests to me that there are big things ahead.

But what do I know? Give me your picks down below in the comments section.

• Here’s this week’s Hangtime Podcast. This week Sekou and I welcomed the guys from The Basketball Jones, Tas and Skeets, who are celebrating their fifth anniversary this weekend up in Toronto. We also had Jenni Carlson from The Oklahoman on with us to talk about her efforts to get Charles Barkley to visit Oklahoma City for a game.

To download the podcast, click here. To subscribe via iTunes, click here. Or you can listen via the flash player below:

Other links…

• I’ve always enjoyed the BBC nature series like Blue Planet and then the Planet Earth, especially getting to watch them in HD or on Blu-Ray. And now there’s a new BBC series about a different animal: Humans!

Check this clip out, and if you can, click the little button on the bottom right of the YouTube player and blow it up full-screen, because it’s pretty amazing.

• The most stone-cold outside shooter this season has to be my main man Rolandas Dovydaitis. Who? Exactly. In an amateur game in Lithuania, Dovydaitis attempted 124 three-pointers in one game, and he made 24 of them. And I love that he finished the game with 73 points, so he scored 72 on three-pointers and also got one free throw. His team won 103-70, but I particularly liked this note in the story:

Despite collecting a total of 73 points, Dovydaitis managed to get a total efficiency ranking of minus-30, mostly due to a hundred missed three-pointers.

• Great story here on Robert Swift, the high schooler drafted by Seattle who was injured a lot and got mad tattoos, then stepped away from basketball. He became an amateur ultimate fighter and ballooned up to 340 pounds, but now is back playing in Japan and playing pretty well.

• Most exciting news this week for me is that the Sidekick is coming back! I was among the world’s most avid Sidekick users for years, until a few years ago when I realized that I wasn’t a 7th grade girl. But the interface was amazing and intuitive, and the keyboard on it was the best phone keyboard I’ve ever used. A couple of years ago Microsoft took over the Sidekick and then everyone had all their data deleted somehow, but luckily I was out before then. I used a G1 for a while, and really liked the Android O/S, but didn’t like the keyboard. For a while I used a Blackberry, which worked fine but isn’t really much fun. For the last few months I’ve been using a Samsung Galaxy S, which is a beautiful phone, but doesn’t have an actual keyboard, which keeps me from typing/texting as much as I probably would otherwise.

The new Sidekick is going to be Android-based, which is awesome, and if the keyboard is even close to as good as the old Sidekick keyboard, I am so in.

• Finally, I’ve been a fan of Natalie Portman since Beautiful Girls, but after she uncorked a laugh on the Golden Globes, the internet has run with it. Here’s a funny video from College Humor where they took the Portman laugh and recut it a bit, to great effect.

The Hawks were able to turn around a ship of poor effort in a win over the Knicks. Atlanta got out to an early lead and maintained sharp play as they snap New York’s five-game winning streak. Jamal Crawford led the Hawks with 21 points off the bench and was helped by Al Horford’s 17 points and 9 rebounds. As Mike Fratello broke it down, the Knicks made elementary mistakes such as not picking up their defensive assignments after substitutions which further solidified Atlanta’s run game. The Hawks kept their energy levels up, turnovers down, and took advantage of some poor execution on the part of the Knicks. Amar’e finished with 24 points and 10 boards.

Without John Wall in the line-up, Gilbert Arenas and Nick Young were given a very temporary licenses to shoot against the Magic. Arenas and Young combined for 62 points (31 and 21, respectively) in an entirely winnable game for the Wizards. Washington led by one point with 13 seconds to go but Dwight Howard was able to corral a Nelson miss and bank in the game-winning bucket. Howard’s 32 points are a season-high and he should be proud of his offensive advancement, as in previous season the center would be almost demoted to a 4th quarter role player. He also scored the last six points in the game for the Magic.

The Cavaliers fought to another hard-earned win as they defeated the Grizzlies. Mo Williams led all scorers with 25 points, in addition to his 12 assists. Memphis collectively fell apart in the last two quarters, with Zach Randolph limited to 13 points on 6-for-16 shooting. As the Cavs outscored the Grizz 30-16 in the 4th quarter, the momentum swung in their favour and they didn’t look back. Cavs head coach Byron Scott has emphasized a more running approach to the offense, as evident by the Bolt-like drills during training camp which the players have admitted to giving them more lift in the 4th quarter of games. The dividends have begun to pay off as Cleveland took a 24-8 fast-break advantage.

The Sixers were able to win in a rarely convincing manner, topping the Nets. Jrue Holiday led Philly with 20 points and 13 assists while Brook Lopez had a mini break-out game for New Jersey with 25 points and 6 rebounds. The Sixers held off a late surge by the Nets by turning up the tempo of their defense, using the length of Thaddeus Young and Iguodala to lock down the perimeter. Execution wise, the story favoured Philly with 29 team assists and only 5 turnovers.

Who said Monta Ellis is selfish? Ellis had 26 points, 10 assists, 7 steals, and 4 rebounds as he led his Warriors over the Wolves. Golden State shot over 50% from the floor and forced 21 Minnesota turnovers (including 16 steals) on their way to an 8-9 record. David Lee returned from whatever monsters rule Wilson Chandler’s mouth and had a 10 point, 6 rebound night. For the Wolves, Beasley led the team in scoring again with 28 points, and Love added 21points and 22 rebounds. The Warriors dominated from the 3rd quarter onwards, with a 60% shooting in the quarter and capitalizing on lazy passes from the Wolves. Dorrell Wright also had a career-high 30 points (including a franchise-best 9 three-pointers made). With Lee fully healthy, I’m looking forward to what this Golden State team can put together in terms of a playoff push later in the season.